1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to hinged surface propping apparatuses, specifically to mechanisms and methods which allow deploying a hinged surface chock from a stowed position to a position of use, or deployed position, and inversely, retracting such said chock from a deployed position to a stowed position.
2. Description of Prior Art
A number of door propping mechanisms are available; the most commonly used types are a wedge-shaped part that is inserted at a door bottom, or a “kick-down” arm attached to a door bottom which can be lowered to keep a door open, and retracted when not in use.
Although the kick down arm offers the advantage of being easily stowed, it has two main disadvantages: it relies on a floor to keep a door open and it is located where at times its use may require bending over.
The wedge type design shares the two disadvantages of the kick down arm, and in addition it is also a loose part which can easily be misplaced.
Interacting with a floor to keep a door open is a problem if the floor covering is slippery, easily damaged, or if the floor at the closing side of the threshold is much lower than the door bottom.
An improvement for a door propping apparatus which interacts with the hinged side of a door and a door jamb is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 83,967 to Howell (1868). The door propping apparatus described by Howell overcomes some of the limitations mentioned above but shares a disadvantage with the wedge type design in that it is a loose part.
Howell recognizes the disadvantage of his invention and proposes securing it with a chain or cord, an inelegant solution which trades the disadvantage of a loose component for the disadvantages of dangling part; he thus rightly refers to his invention as a portable device.
Several door propping apparatuses similar to the one described by Howell have been patented (U.S. Pat. No. 4,831,688 to Deininger (1989), U.S. Pat. No. 5,027,471 to Barnes (1991), U.S. Pat. No. 5,450,652 to Webb (1995), U.S. Pat. No. 5,873,146 to Mungo (1999), U.S. Pat. No. 7,559,114 to Ranilovich (2009)). These devices are sometimes referred to as “door chocks” and are either explicitly defined as portable or somehow termed removable.
Howell extends the use of his invention to also include propping shutters open, yet narrowly names his invention a “retaining-device for doors”. Simple modifications to his and related inventions would enable their use on other hinged surfaces. Hereinafter the terms “hinged surface chock”, or simply “chock”, will be used to refer to an apparatus which obstructs the closing path of a hinged surface in the vicinity of a gap between said hinged surface and another hinged surface connected to it by at least one hinge.
My invention expands the usefulness of hinged surface chocks by enabling their use as non-portable devices. My invention is not a chock, but a mechanism to enable deployment and stowage of these and similar apparatuses. Limited prior art for inventions that enable stowage of a hinged surface chock (Howell's cord suggestion, US patent application 20120043770 by Wong (2012) showing a hook for hanging a door chock) should attest to its non-obviousness.